Health care opponents are gearing up to fight another day — Nov. 2, to be precise.

The Republican National Committee revamped its website Monday to highlight its “Fire Nancy Pelosi” campaign and raise money for the party. Within hours, it had collected about $400,000.

“We will be talking about this literally every day moving forward to Election Day,” said Doug Heye, an RNC spokesman.

The Republican efforts won’t go unanswered. Democrats got the jump on their adversaries, launching a sophisticated and well-financed campaign to defend the law even before final action takes place in the Senate. The goal for President Barack Obama and his allies is to define what the reform package means for a skeptical public.

Whether it is the Democratic definition that prevails or the Republican one, the outcome will have huge consequences for the 2010 midterm elections — and ultimately for Obama’s chances of reelection in 2012.

Defeating Democrats is not the only Republican strategy to derail health care. Republican attorneys general are lining up to challenge the law in court, and GOP governors and legislatures in more than 30 states are debating and passing legislation they hope will exempt them from its particulars.

But punishing the people responsible for passing health care reform clearly has the biggest appeal for health care opponents. “We need to defeat these bastards,” Rush Limbaugh said Monday. “We need to wipe them out.”

The major focus for the RNC will be Democrats who switched their votes from opposing reform to passing it, including freshman Reps. Betsy Markey of Colorado and Suzanne Kosmas of Florida, both of whom represent conservative districts.

Americans for Prosperity, which helped organize town hall protests last summer, also has unveiled a new campaign called November Is Coming. It urges reform opponents to sign on to the site and pledge to vote against Democrats who voted for reform.

“We intend to continue with our voter education and mobilization all the way through the election,” said Phil Kerpen, the group’s vice president for policy.

Penny Nance, chief executive officer of Concerned Women for America, said her members are “furious” at Democrats who supported reform despite changes in the House language regarding abortion coverage. Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, who secured a presidential executive order that reaffirmed federal law that bans taxpayer funding for the procedure before casting his vote for reform, is a particular target.

Nance dubbed the maneuver the “Stupak sellout” and said her group will work against his reelection.

But even as Limbaugh was sounding his battle cry and Republicans were organizing Monday, a coalition of progressive groups — from labor unions to health care advocates — began a multimillion-dollar television advertising campaign and announced grass-roots events in swing House districts, thanking Democrats for passing the law and highlighting its importance to average Americans.

“We’re going to let our friends know we are going to be there for them,” said American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees President Gerald McEntee. “We expect in three months, the American people will understand the bill, and they will be happy and satisfied with it.”

Health care stakeholders — including drugmakers and insurance companies — are also weighing a second, post-passage public relations campaign that would educate the public about future insurance options and streamline the enrollment process, which is scheduled to begin in 2014.

Republicans scoff at the idea that the Democrats can quickly turn around public opinion, which most polls show runs against the reform package.

But the Democrats do have one advantage: a four-year-old playbook on how to turn a controversial change in the health care system from a loser into a winner. Its author: President George W. Bush.

Through an aggressive television advertising and grass-roots campaign in 2006, Bush managed to turn a new prescription-drug plan for seniors from a political loser into a winner in about four months.

Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said the key reason the public relations blitz worked four years ago was that “there were real benefits there that seniors valued. So, Part D sold Part D.”

That explains why Democratic activists are focusing their new pitch to the public on the short-term benefits that are included in the reform legislation.

But Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, conceded that some Democrats facing tough reelections must move quickly to protect themselves. In addition to airing commercials on their behalf, Stern said he is encouraging them to adopt “crisper, faster descriptions” of the reform package and their reasons for backing it.

“It will sell itself with time,” said Stern, “but you don’t get that time in a competitive election.”

Obama also has agreed to help sell the package by making a series of public appearances applauding the legislation’s passage and highlighting the unanimous Republican opposition to it. The president has assured Democrats that he will sell the benefits of the package in the run-up to the November elections and beyond.

Administration officials are also preparing talking points and fact sheets that lawmakers can take home with them on their spring recess — after the expected final vote in the Senate on amendments to the package that remove some of the more offensive side deals, Obama advisers said.

And Obama’s grass-roots Organizing for America machine is also expected to be galvanized to buck up Democrats who voted for the reform package, while MoveOn has already collected $2 million in pledges to help finance challengers against House and Senate members who opposed the legislation.

In addition, Americans United for Change will launch a round of advertisements and robocalls in the districts of vulnerable Republicans, accusing them of taking the side of insurance companies and denying their constituents access to health care that is as good as their own. Their first target is Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who will be the target of more than $100,000 in commercials set to begin this week.

Most of the biggest reforms in the package don’t take effect fully until 2014. That’s when insurance companies will have to stop denying coverage to anyone with a pre-existing condition, and the exchanges intended to make the insurance market more competitive — and less costly — will begin operating.

To ensure Obama’s rollout goes more smoothly than Bush’s, Families USA Executive Director Ron Pollack, a reform supporter, is already working to create a new nonprofit group aimed at educating people newly eligible for Medicaid and insurance subsidies.

Pollack has pitched his idea to hospitals, insurance companies and drugmakers — the same groups that bailed out the Bush plan — and he expects those industry groups to put millions of dollars behind a similar effort.

Ultimately, Pollack hopes to see 50 state-based offices that can launch a robust enrollment program for the roughly 30 million new health insurance customers envisioned in the reform legislation.

Mark McClellan, a former Bush White House official who supports passage of the reform package, said he believes Democrats have a shot at turning public opinion around marginally in the short term. But scoring big swings in public opinion could be years away.

“What really matters is showing people it really works. Some people will see benefits next year. But for most people, it will not have a big effect — except maybe some increases in premiums — until 2014. That’s two election cycles away,” he said.